Stephen Wilson expertly crafts extraordinary and timeless designs using sustainable materials. Each art piece embarks on a journey, starting with an up-cycled luxury bag, box, silk scarf, or album. Wilson meticulously creates a bespoke embroidery design, delicately intertwining every stitch by hand. Once the design, colors, and elements are meticulously selected, the artistic process advances to the assembling stage. The boxes and bags undergo a mesmerizing transformation, metamorphosing into captivating canvases for Wilson's creations. The embroidery is seamlessly integrated into the chosen medium, unveiling a captivating texture that breathes life into the artwork. Appliqués, patches, and butterflies are individually stitched out, meticulously crafted, and delicately placed on each piece, culminating in a truly distinctive and unparalleled masterpiece. Finally, each artwork is beautifully presented, encased in an acrylic frame, ready to enchant all who behold it.
Artist Statement
"My work has always been about the medium of fabric and thread and how far I can push the medium in both conventional and unconventional methods. Since the conventional use of thread and embroidery has been in fashion and wearables, fashion has always been a major influence in my work. Besides fashion, music has always been a strong influence on my life and in my work. I grew up in the 1970’s and music was all about record albums. This was before the internet, streaming, CD’s or IPods. When a new record came out from an artist you followed it was literally, everything. I remember the way the albums used to feel, reading through the liner noted and most of all admiring the art of the album itself. A big part of the modularity series was combining different techniques like photography, luxury boxes and paintings together to form art installations that start different conversations . The next piece that I wanted to add to the conversation, as you can gather are record albums. I have spent months sourcing vintage record albums and created dozens of prototypes to finally come up with these pieces. Each album was hand selected and then I set out to embroider them. Each thread is hand digitized using digital drawing tools using a scan of the actual album as a backdrop. Every stitch is placed by hand, one at a time. The embroidery process itself is the most interesting and has to be seen to be believed. Each album is embroidered directly through the actual Album sleeve. Each album has to be carefully aligned on the machines before it is stitched, this is a very difficult technical challenge. Each album receives a different type of treatment, some like The Rolling Stones 'Sticky Fingers' is stitched completely with thousands of stitches and others like Nirvana’s 'Nevermind' use a combination of embroidery thread and appliqués cut from the liner notes in the album. Each album is created as unique variations in additions of 8 with 1 artist proof. Since the albums are part of the modularity series they blend perfectly with the other works in the series. The narrative now has art, music and fashion all married together."
